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Palin's Pride: Teenage Pregnancy

Sarah Palin's 17-year-old unmarried daughter is pregnant. According to Palin, they're "Pregnant and Proud!" How's that for family values?

BSN Commentary: Election 2008

On Monday, Republican vice presidential candidate, Sarah Palin
announced that her 17-year-old, unwed daughter is five months pregnant.

In
her statement, the 44-year-old mother of five said, "Our beautiful
daughter Bristol came to us with news that, as parents, we knew would
make her grow up faster than we had ever planned."Now,
the manner in which that statement was crafted certainly leads one to
believe that this is a new development in the “Palin-McCain family.”
But according to campaign officials, McCain knew that Palin's 17-year
old, unwed daughter was pregnant even before he tagged her to be his running
mate. So
why unveil this new state of affairs so suddenly now? Because, rather
than further taint the Palin family’s reputation with more
embarrassment from the ugly rumors swarming the internet that Governor
Palin is not really the mother of her youngest child, Trig, but rather
her daughter, Bristol is the mother of the baby, Palin and McCain
decided to fess up about teen Bristol’s unwed pregnancy, that would
have made it biologically impossible for the former to be true.That is another slap in the face of the American people who Senator McCain obviously thinks are brain dead.The
Palins further stated, “We're proud of Bristol's decision to have her
baby and even prouder to become grandparents." Excuse me – No fear of
redundancy here, Governor, but earth to Sarah -- your 17-year-old
unmarried daughter is pregnant. Is this how wannabe Vice President (who would be a heartbeat away from President)Sarah Palin, will
represent the issue of teen pregnancy to teenagers, young girls and
women in America? With pride over teenage unwed pregnancy? Have these
people lost their minds? According to NationalCampaign.org , about one
in three pregnancies in America are unwanted. That is 2 million
unwanted pregnancies in America. This figure includes pregnancies that
end in abortion (about 1.3 million), births resulting from pregnancies
that women themselves say they did not want at the time of conception
or ever in the future (about 567,000), and a smaller number of
miscarriages that were also from unwanted pregnancies (179,000). Where
is the pride in that? It is admirable that the Alaskan Governor would
stand behind her daughter and declare her love and support, but
bringing America this message of denial and addressing the issue of
teenage unwed pregnancy with pride is surprising. Palin’s stance on
this development is one of great concern, indeed.Bottom
line: Here is a 44-year-old mother of five children, running the
entire state of Alaska. My question to the Supermom is, while the
Governor is out governing the 670,053 Alaskans (of only 3.7% whom are
Black), who’s watching the kids?